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Tuesday, 29 January 2013

Finding the Fell ponies

2 beautiful Fell ponies

Shawn and I decided at short notice to have a week in the lovely lake district in Cumbria, as it's only 2 hours drive from where we now live, and we hadn't been there before. This is the area that the beautiful Fell ponies originate from. I couldn't visit that area and not try to find some feral ponies to photograph, so I did a quick bit of research to see where I might be able to find some.

I emailed the owners of Lunesdale Fell pony stud - they are Fell pony breeders that have grazing rights on Roundthwaite common, and asked if there were any Fells out on the common that I could photograph. They said there was, and I was welcome to go to the common and look for the ponies, but they also mentioned that they may be hard to
find. What I hadn't
realised was the common is really large - over 6 miles long and quite wide, including many hills and valleys. They normally go out on a quad bike to find them and even then it can take hours !

The huge area where the Fells roam

Well, I really wanted to see them so Shawn and I (it was me really) decided to go for a drive around the area
and see if we could find a way up to the common and decide if it was worth
looking for them. We drove to the area through some country lanes and into a little village.
I looked up onto the hills ahead, and guess what - I spotted
some tiny black dots on the horizon. Shawn thought they might be cows, but I was convinced they were
ponies.

We stopped and asked a farmer if we could get up to where they
were, and he said the best way was to go back down the road, and then up through some fields onto the ridge, and
then to walk along the ridge. So we parked the van, near the place he had pointed out and got
ready to walk up. Just then a cross looking man came out of his house and asked what we were doing, he then said the
way we wanted to go up would involve walking through his field, and he told us he
would not allow us to go through his land ! We were a bit disappointed,
and headed back towards the first farmer. He very kindly took us to one of
his fields further along and showed us another way up to the ridge. The
field was really, really steep, and I was a bit worried as he said there was
a bull in the field somewhere !

After about 1/2 hour climbing up the
hill we got to the stone wall around the common and climbed over. The
ponies were right there :-) I felt so lucky that I had found them.

I
very quietly took a few photos from a distance, as I didn't know how tame they were. They tolerated me but as soon as I tried going closer they ran away. So I took a few more photos from a distance, then this time got closer and closer very slowly. They let me get quite close, and I just watched them and took photos for ages. After a while they realised I was no threat, and got quite inquisitive - quite a few of them, including some foals, came right up to me and sniffed and nuzzled me. It was such a lovely feeling that they felt that safe with me.

Fell pony saying hello

Inquisitive Fell pony foal

I had a lovely time being with these beautiful native ponies, and it is great to see them in their natural setting, looking healthy and as nature intended.

Please look back for the next blog as I have lots more lovely photos, and I will be writing about Fell ponies, and their origins, characters etc